


Stolen Hearts

by Amythe3lder



Series: Irregular Pieces [3]
Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Backstory, Gen, Graphic Description of Corpses, Mutilated Bodies, Mycroft Being a Good Brother, Pre-A Study in Pink, Prompt Fill, Sherlock Holmes & Molly Hooper Friendship, pre-Mollcroft
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-25
Updated: 2015-02-25
Packaged: 2018-03-15 01:02:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 539
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3432293
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Amythe3lder/pseuds/Amythe3lder
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She reasoned that this was likely a promotion from her job as fire-douser.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Stolen Hearts

**Author's Note:**

  * For [That Little Quiet Mollcroft Geek (shnuffeluv)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/shnuffeluv/gifts).
  * In response to a prompt by [JohnlockInferno (Frakme)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Frakme/pseuds/JohnlockInferno) in the [PromptButSlow](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/PromptButSlow) collection. 



> **Prompt: Lovehearts, fountain pen, frame**
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> Snow White stitching up your circuit-board  
> Synapse slipping through the hidden door  
> "Blinding"- Florence + The Machine

This latest murderer was a quirky one.

Molly Hooper suspected that all serial killers were- by their nature- a bit odd, but here there was a twisted creativity in the violence. The victims had all suffered a terrible wound in their abdominal wall, through which the perpetrator had reached upwards to tear their hearts loose from the moorings, making literal the old saying. The more bizarre element was that the organs were then replaced with similarly shaped foods. She sighed inwardly and knew that it would be some time before she could eat a Jammie Dodger again. She wasn’t clear on what was being done with the missing pieces, but the killer must really love hearts. _Or_ , she reconsidered, _perhaps not_.

Either way, that was hardly her purview. Her role in this was to conduct the post-mortems and make a play at wrangling Sherlock Holmes. Her erstwhile patient had substituted his previous addiction for one which put Molly in the official position of enabler. She reasoned that this was likely a promotion from her job as fire-douser, and at least she wasn’t completely without company. The newly-minted Detective Inspector Lestrade seemed to be acting as her friend’s dealer, but from what she could tell, he held no sway.

Molly now had the distinction of being one of the only people in the world who could stand being in Sherlock’s caustic presence. Her skin had toughened in the gritty wind of his irritability, and she had been inoculated against feeling much of the sting of his dismissal by enduring that of his elder sibling. Her hopeless preoccupation with Mycroft had rendered her unable to hear the scratch of a fountain pen without having to bite her lip against the memory of the man who wielded one like a sword. She wondered if the detective realised that St. Bart’s Hospital was receiving regular cheques in that neat handwriting, easing his passage through the corridors and smoothing over ruffled feathers. The envelopes had begun appearing in her desk drawer the month after she had helped Sherlock through detox. Though they were made out to her place of employment, the message was clear: Mycroft’s financial reparations were in her care, as his little brother was. She had done the figures and discovered that St. Bart’s was compensated for all of the equipment that had gone missing, plus twenty percent. At least the object of her wayward affections was a generous tipper.

She had seen the younger Holmes at his very lowest: sick and sobbing, weak and whimpering as he fought his way through dependency. Now, he was all annoyance and discomfort, unsure how to categorise her involvement in his life. They really knew very little about each other. His information had been gleaned from observation and deduction; hers was nearly all second-hand stories. For all that their shared experiences had wrought a painfully intimate familiarity with one another, they were still barely acquaintances on the surface. He, for his part, seemed to have no idea how to handle her. Owing to a rather awkward conversation in which she badly framed an oblique question, Sherlock was currently labouring under the misapprehension that she fancied him. _If only I did_.

Wait.

She could _use_ this.

**Author's Note:**

> I know the prompt words are a bit buried in there, but this is what came to mind. I told myself I would never do a prequel to _Undertow_ , and I guess I failed that Will save. Oh well!  
> This is for Shnuffeluv because she pointed out the lack of angst in these prompt fills.  
> Rats.


End file.
